Unwritten I feel like pushing him on a poly will cause him to become very insulted. It would hurt him. He's already hurt that I asked him to contact Dr H. I mean hurt- not pretending. He thinks I'm telling him he can't make me happy. He rarely tells me he doesn't feel good and today he did tell me that.

Your marriage is a bad marriage, and he isn't making you happy. If he's insulted by that, that says more about him than you. The question is, what will he do about it?

Kat, he has gas-lit you so much that you seem to be defending his indefensible behavior.

But the alternative is to insist he do a poly, contact Dr H.

My husband is not a bad guy, Prisca. He's wonderful in many ways. It's the IB that causes me grief.

Except I know you're looking at it from a non-emotional place. I can't thank you enough for your perspective. I just feel like he hasn't been cheating, he's changing his IB behavior, he spends all of his time working or with the family and me. This is so hard. I know you're seeing something I'm not.

If this were true, why would the woman at the restaurant bother you so much?

You know he's had a secret second life -- one that he still refuses to be completely open about.

You are right- it bothered me a lot. I'm seeing a friend today who occasionally dropped in to rec classes and often saw my husband. Should I ask her if she ever saw anything weird or tell her about the woman on Friday to see if she has anything else to add?

Why wouldn't he just agree to do coaching w me and tell me every woman from this "team" he was hanging out with? I don't get it...I could call up an instructor and ask her. But so humiliating.

Prisca, do you think he was cheating with this woman? Or having an EA? If so, she would have had his text/number but didn't...she had no idea where he's been for months. This is where I get thrown off. Is it an EA if he has no feelings for her and never exchanged numbers? He's not acting foggy or confused. He's devastated that I'm upset.

And recently one of the instructors told my friend to invite my husband and I together as her guests where she teaches, because she hasn't seen him in a while and heard he was now spending his lunch hour running with his wife.

I don't know that she'd do that if there was something weird, but maybe I'm wrong.

Because he's hiding something.

Yes, I do. He could easily prove me wrong by opening up to you about everything that went on in that class, and by getting a polygraph.

BTW, I didn't have the phone/texting number or email address of my affair partner. Lack of a texting number doesn't prove his innocence.

Ok, thanks Prisca. So I need to insist on a poly?

You know, Kat, if not a full blown EA, the thing that he could be hiding is a woman (women) that he was "friendly" with that he found attractive and found him attractive too. It may have never risen to the level of an A but this woman (women) would still pose a threat to your M.

My firm belief is that my ex WH had several of these types of women in his past before he turned fully "wayward." Many of the stories that you tell about your H and his relationships with women that he doesn't tell you about himself are very very familiar to me

Whatever it is, you need to get it out into the open in order to fully protect your marriage and then be able to move on and really start to work on your M>

Susie, that is what I'm concerned about. But he swears that isn't the case. But then why not tell me about every woman that he was getting to know? So your X husband was doing things similarly, getting to know other women and not telling you about it. So this is a huge red flag. Thanks for all your help here.

My friend said she never saw him do anything but be focused on his practice. She said that if he was ever singled out for a demo or anything it was always done professionally and with class.

Just told husband again that in order to move forward I need to know who was part of this "team" that he was talking about. He said he already told me, we've already been through this, and he left the room.

But he is not consistently acting in strong ways with you now. It is okay of course to walk away from a conversation before the LBs start flying. But you all have had a surprise out of nowhere and you want to strengthen your marriage. It's okay to tell him the ways he is addressing this, angry when you have requests and nice again only when you drop them is not making you feel reassured but that there is information you still need to know you're on track together for a happy marriage. I am praying for unity for your family and that you two can resolve this in a way that leaves you stronger going forward.

New, thank you for your kind post and help. I ended up telling him later when he came back into our room that I need that info to move forward. He apologized for leaving before, said he is exhausted and sad and didn't know how to handle it. He said that he told me everything, that he went into rec class focused on his workout and talked with the community no more than 3-5 minutes before heading back to work. He said he told me the regular instructors he talked to, whom I know, and anyone else was just there for polite banter with the instructor. He said he felt no friendship or connection to the woman who came up to our table and would never consider her or anyone else from the class a friend.

My friend's comment yesterday lines up with this, that he was focused on his workout and instructors were always professional.

I feel like I'm an emotional mess. My husband wants to move forward and when I don't, he gets very frustrated, He told me it's because we already came together and solved the problem, that he can't keep going back to it and feeling awful again. So I can either move forward or like last night, stand my ground and feel pain. It's painful for me and my family when my husband and I are not getting along. It feels terrible so I end up accepting his attempts to reconnect. Then, he thinks everything is ok and the next day I'm not.

It was always something that could be explained - "Oh I just see her at the gym, I don't even know her". Etc. So I would just brush it off...I thought also the attention was one-sided, the women were the ones interested in friendship/chatting with my ex WH and he was the innocent bystander, just being nice in response. He is a good looking guy and charismatic so this made sense to me.

The thing is, he had POOR boundaries with women, period. Which is what people have been telling you since Page 1 of this thread.


Sorry but I'm not buying it.

At one point when I posted here about an incident regarding my ex and a woman emailing him at work (work related, but it was very friendly and it made me uncomfortable), a male poster responded to me that women do not approach men like that unless they are advertising that they are open to it and returning the attention in some way.

We often tell folks that here when they are not wanting to blame their WSs for all the attention they seemingly get from the opposite sex that their spouse IS sending out signals and have poor boundaries. No, they are not SO attractive and approachable that people fawn all over them for no reason, lol.

Please don't fall for that.

Thanks again Susie. Your example above with the gym struck a chord, and so did the email. Yes, I agree with everyone here that my husband has poor boundaries.

Edited to add that I 100% believe what you're saying above, that women do not give a man attention/friendship unless they were getting that in return. I'm attractive and friendly, and men never behave like this woman did with me because I'm absolutely not giving out signals like that and I don't put myself in those positions.

I'm having a very difficult time not getting angry. What does everyone recommend I do in this case? Tell him I need space? Need to think? What is the right thing to do when you're this upset with your spouse? If I try to talk about it again, he will have the upper hand. He will not give me what I need, and I will feel awful.

"Honey, I have figured out how you can make me happy and stop me from going back to this over and over. Its what we talked about the other night. I have scheduled a polygraph to once and for all put this rest."

Thoughts?

Ok and then what do I do if he refuses or says I'm being unreasonable? Or crazy?

And what if he passes the polygraph, that there was no PA or EA but I'm still upset by the inappropriate boundaries? A polygraph isn't going to address the issues Susie makes above, the flirty, open for business behavior under the rouse of being a "nice guy." Will a polygraph get to the bottom of giving/returning attention to this woman and possibly others? I'm hurt by what I already know and my husband isn't addressing.

And Kat,
What do you mean he will have the upper hand?

So now you know how he controls you. He makes it unpleasant and punishes you until you give in. (I am not saying he is a terrible guy but bad habits he has picked up)
He might not know how to deal with your un-happiness but it is time too!

And it isn't YOU causing this but his neglect of dealing with it. Don't have mis-placed guilt here. YOU have the right to feel how you feel period. NO matter what he thinks about it!

That was one of the best things I learned from MB.... that I don't have to apologize or feel bad for my feelings ever again.

Your H is adament that he has had no relationships with people from his class. I think you are focusing too much on his class honestly, with the assumption that if there was nothing to prove he did anything inappropriate with a class member, then he is being truthful.

If he has poor boundaries, he has poor boundaries everywhere... at work, and I think you also had concerns about your kids sporting teams as well. He could have had a relationship with one or more people from other places, and just flirty exchanges with people from class.

I had suspicians about several specific people my H was interacting with, and at the end when I got the confession of an affair (when I scheduled a poly, by the way), it was with a woman he had worked with years earlier, someone I had never heard of in my life. I had never heard her name, and she hadn't worked with him for years.

Does he often treat your emotions and feelings in such a disrespectful way? Telling your spouse that the way they feel or their request is unreasonable or crazy is very disrespectful.